HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET (2012) Review

House at the End of the Street- 2.5/5 Stars

Director Mark Tonderai brings us House at the End of the Street, a surprisingly decent little horror/thriller flick starring the beautiful and talented Jennifer Lawrence from the Hunger Games movies. The film starts out pretty dark, laying down the tragic backstory that the rest of the movie follows. From there we are introduced to Lawrence’s character Elissa and her mom as they move in next door to the house that the previously mentioned tragedy occurred. Everything is going perfect, until a light in the scary old house next door turns on in the middle of the night. After asking around, we learn that Ryan, the son from the previous family, has moved into the house and for some reason every single person in the town hates him. Not just kind of hates him, like wants to beat him to death and burn his house down hates him. As the movie goes along, Elissa starts to hang out with Ryan more and more, making her mom and the local high school douchebags very uneasy. But why? Ryan seems like such a nice guy. I’m sure he can’t be hiding any secrets right? 

 

House at the End of the Street is a love story wrapped in a murder mystery, wrapped in a psychological thriller. If you don’t mind every cliche in the book complete with jump scares, bumbling cops, and your inevitable plot twists, this might be for you. I will admit I hadn’t heard a lot of good things about this but I ended up coming out of it with appreciation for what it was trying to do. It’s not often that a good thriller with horror undertones does it for me anymore.    

Available for instant viewing on Netflix, you could do a lot worse if you are looking for a good way to spend an hour and a half on a dark snowy night. Just make sure the fire is up and the lights are low. House gets 2 ½ / 5 stars in my book. Enjoy!